The Keyhole makes observations about consumers, brands, ads, & marketing, through a predictive customer loyalty lens. Most marketing is ineffective to today's bionic consumer, given undifferentiated products, loss of "brandness," & hard to come by profits. Marketers talk about "engagement" but nobody seems to be doing a very good job measuring or integrating it into what they do & it shows! The Keyhole opens a dialogue on this subject & suggests real-world solutions with the marketing community.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

You can’t have missed Sarah Palin’s well-publicized endorsement
of Donald Trump. Somewhat quieter has been the confederation of conservatives
trying to get other “conservative thinkers” to speak out against the Republican
Presidential front-runner.

The most recent has been Ross Douthat, a conservative author
and New York Times columnist, in this past Sunday’s Times op-ed, “The Way to
Stop Trump.” Mr. Douthat’s advice? “To attack him effectively, you have to go
after all the things that people like about him. You have to flip his brand.” The
problem is that itisn’t as simple as Mr. Douthat seems to suggest.

Last June when Mr. Trump announced his candidacy, we asked,
“Did a Human Brand stand a chance at a run for the highest office in the land?”
To answer that, we conducted an emotional engagement poll. If you’d like to
hear about that, listen to the predicted outcome in our “What Happened?”
recording, “Tippecanoe and The Donald Too,” at http://brandkeys.com/what-happened

Mr. Douthat went on to list a series of very rational facts
that he believed would “persuade people that (Mr. Trump) is a con artist” and,
therefore, derail Mr. Trump’s nomination.But as the brand engagement process – whether you’re a pet food or a
political candidate – is far more emotional than rational. So just using cogent
facts to topple a successful brand isn’t generally a good strategy, and
particularly not in the case of Mr. Trump.

No matter how those facts line up, Donald Trump is a human
brand extraordinaire! And despite how many marketers have fallen into the very bad
habit of calling everything and everyone a “brand,” Mr. Trump is one of a very,
very small club of Human Brands, who embodies 100% of the values of his enterprises
and ideas. “Human Brand” is a designation representing the highest level of
imbued meaning, values, and differentiation any brand can be. Shifting
consumers away from their faith in and engagement with brands like that on the
basis of facts is difficult, if not downright impossible.

Adding the Trump name to virtually anything increases perceived
value anyplace from 20% to 37%. In terms of consumer emotional engagement,
adding the Trump brand causes the product or service to be seen as better able
to meet consumer expectations for their Ideal and the values that drive
positive behavior in a particular category. In this case the Presidency of the
United States.

So when Mr. Trump announced, we looked at the category
engagement drivers for the Republican Ideal President, and how Brand Trump
measured up to them. These have been validated every Presidential election
cycle since 1980, and generally speaking the drivers – in the order Republicans
“see” their Ideal President – can be described as follows:

Resolve: has the strength and leadership to guide the
country?

Perception: has an understanding of the problems facing the
county?

Action: has a plan for solving the problems? (Hint: walls
count, apparently)

Compassion: does the candidate care about all the people?

1,350 registered Republicans in the 9 U.S. Census Regions
assessed Mr. Trump using our emotional engagement questionnaire and, compared to
the Republican Ideal calibrated to be 100%, on an overall basis “Brand Trump” measured
84%. After the Palin endorsement that assessment went up to 89%. We expect that
after exhibiting the resolve not to participate in the most recent Republican
debate, that score will have moved up again

Brands with the kinds of high engagement levels voters are
exhibiting toward Mr. Trump always lead in the marketplace when it comes to
sales, so given the general tenor of the electorate, that’s likely to translate
to votes in the political arena. So, no matter how rational, sensible, logical,
fact-based, and well-conceived, Mr. Dlouthat’s recommendations are, they just aren’t
as effective and compelling in shifting brand perceptions when it comes to
voter emotional brand engagement as it does in an op-ed column.

It was Ronald Reagan in his address to the 1988 Republican
National Convention, who misquoted John Adams, saying, “Facts are stupid
things.” Mr. Reagan laughed and corrected himself.

But in this instance, when it comes to Brand Trump, he was
absolutely right the first time.

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

The brand that started the “fresh movement,” is hoping for a
fresh start.

It took Chipotle twenty-two years to transform itself from a
burrito stand to a $23 billion quality brand. They did it by meeting customer
expectations regarding the values of fresh, locally sourced, customizable food
at a fair price. Oh, and it was generally agreed the brand had integrity. And
they did all this long before the phrase “genetically modified,” was ever
uttered in competitive brands’ boardrooms, and in consumer-value time, light
years before competitors tried to re-position their offerings as “fresh.” Or
“customizable.” At the time, competitors were busy focusing on their Dollar
Menus.

Anyway, Chipotle showed up on our Customer Loyalty
Engagement Index a decade ago – in 2006 – once there were enough locations
nationally for reasonable levels of customer incidence. And over the next five
years the brand moved up the Fast Casual restaurant loyalty list to the number
one spot. By then everyone in the category was chasing them. For being fresh,
for being additive-free, for being customizable. They seemed unstoppable.

It only took seven months after one – then six more – outbreaks
of E. coli bacterium and salmonella-related illnesses, to dramatically effect
customer loyalty for Chipotle. Chipotle same-store sales, which had reached a
brand and category-best of +20%, dipped almost 15% last Quarter. Yikes! So it came
as no surprise that in our 2016 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, Chipotle
dropped to the number 6 spot (of 21 brands on this year’s list, five of which
were new). Again, yikes! Why the drop? And why didn’t the brand fall further
down the list?

Well, the drop itself was self-evident and inevitable. You can’t
feed consumers “quality,” “fresh” food, and have them get sick without
expecting some repercussions! But sick as they might have been, when it comes
to loyalty, customers are six times more likely to give the brand the benefit
of the doubt in adverse circumstances – like the original outbreak.

But with the epidemic of illnesses that followed, that fount
of customer forgiveness is drying up, and it’s now showing up in how consumers “see”
the brand meeting their expectations. In this case for the value of quality,
but mostly for the value of “safe food preparation,” which has always been a
value-component in the category, but has had generally lower expectations
surrounding it. Fast casual consumers don’t expect to get sick from the fresh food
on offer. But that said, last week Chipotle received a grand jury subpoena
related to an outbreak in California, an indication that the Justice Department
and the FDA might be considering a criminal case. Zowie!

In the meantime Chipotle is doing what it can. Conceding
that they may be more vulnerable than other fast food and fast casual
restaurants because of their fresh ingredients and fresh preparation, they’ve
put food safety controls into place that experts say should reduce the risk of
food contamination to virtually zero. So huzzah! And it is closing down the
entire chain for a few hours next month for a system-wide food-safely meeting
just to make sure that everybody is on the same safety page. When it comes to
food safety, you can’t be too careful.

Will this help improve the brand’s loyalty and engagement
efforts and assessments? Well, like they say about colds and chicken soup, “It
couldn’t hurt!” But given their previous loyalty levels, customers are also six
times more likely to see the actions being taken as responsible and believe the
Chipotle brand can cure these ills.

Because when it comes to loyalty, 21st century consumers
question all their beliefs. Except the ones they really believe, and those they
never question!

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Winston Churchill said, “however beautiful the strategy, you
should occasionally look at the results.” Those words have taken on greater
weight over the past 75 years, as making predictions tends to be a far more
frequent and popular pastime than actually checking back on their accuracy.

Today the most important question brand marketers should be
asking is, “Was research we based our strategy on, predictive?” Asking that before
you commission the research can help when the time comes to answering the ultimate
question of marketing life, “What happened?”

Some of problem has been that predictions of consumer
behavior and brand performance are more often based on counting “likes” and
tallying tweets, summing up social network shares or measuring how entertained
consumers were by a brand’s efforts. Happily, prediction of consumer behavior
becomes remarkably less risky when one relies, instead, on emotionally-based,
validated engagement metrics. Those point the direction to what people will
actually do, instead of what they say they are going to do.

As our own annual test, Brand Keys once again examines how
closely what we said during the year on our blog, in our LinkedIn
posts and in TV, radio, print, and online interviews about strategies brands
were – or were not taking – matched up with actual market results. In short, to
see what happened?

And listen to some recorded answers to that question, along
with some consumer insights, market realities, and brand practicalities we hope
you’ll find both useful and enlightening. We’ve tried to make them entertaining,
too, so feel free to share them with your friends and colleagues, or even tweet
about them!

This year our look-back examines predictions we made about
Super Bowl advertisers and Presidential candidates, Fast Food, Casual Food, and
Natural Food, loyalty leaders, loyal Millennials, pizza loyalists, bourbon
drinkers, and all manner of smart subjects from smartwatches to smarter brands.
And, in case you missed them, we’ve also included a recording addressing key
Trends for 2016 to give you and your brand a head start on success.

Churchill also noted, “men occasionally stumble on the
truth,” but when it comes to today’s consumers, that’s not really good enough. No
matter how many views and likes your marketing efforts obtained.

So pull up your computer or mobile device and join us again
this year, or for the first time, and give a listen and find out, What
Happened?

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Friday, January 01, 2016

It’s been said that a New Year’s resolution is bound to be
broken. Maybe it’s just that people just set the bar too high for themselves.

My favorite acknowledgment of that is the one that goes, “my
New Year’s resolution list usually starts with the desire to lose between ten
and three thousand pounds.” It turns out that losing weight has perennially
been No. 1 on most people’s New Year’s resolution lists, and that was true
again this year.

How do we know? As part of our annual Brand Keys Customer
Loyalty Engagement Index (those results will be available in February, we absolutely
promise!), we also asked 11,600 men and women about their 2016 New Year’s
resolutions. Here’s their top-16:

Lose weight

Eat healthier

Exercise more/more regularly

Save more money

Keep my resolutions more than a week

Get organized/plan better

Get out of debt/pay all my bills

Be a better person/volunteer

Spend less time on Facebook

Spend more time with my family

Quit smoking

Learn something new/a new language

Get a new job

Drink less

Find a new relationship

Read more books

It turns out, not everyone makes a New Year’s resolution.
According to this year’s survey only 58% plan to do so for 2016. And, alas, on
average only 9% are successful at keeping them, to one degree or another. Maybe
that number would be higher if we called them something else, like “New Year’s
casual promises” or “things you think would be a good thing to do, but are
under no legal obligation to fulfill.”

Or maybe it’s just like Mark Twain said. “Now is the
accepted time to make your annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin
paving hell with them as usual.”

We wish you success in your 2016 endeavors. Whatever they
are.

Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

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The Keyhole: Peeking at 21st Century Brands

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About Us

Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, is a sought-after speaker and global thought leader on engagement and loyalty. He has pioneered work in these areas, creating the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index and the Sports Fan Loyalty Index. New York University’s communication school has declared Dr. Passikoff “the most-quoted brand consultant in the United States.”